


Thursday

by xlydiadeetz



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Auguste is still dead, Bad Ending, Damen a clumsy puppy, Fluff and Angst, Laurent is a poet, Love Poems, M/M, Strangers, Tchaikovsky has a small cameo, Trains, and i'm still not sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 09:23:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10408986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xlydiadeetz/pseuds/xlydiadeetz
Summary: They met on a train.





	

 

 

> _The black swallows will return_
> 
> _to hang their nests on your balcony,_
> 
> _and once again will knock in play_
> 
> _against your window panes;_
> 
>  
> 
> _but those that stopped their flight and perched_
> 
> _to observe your beauty and my happiness,_
> 
> _those who learnt our names,_
> 
> _those... will not return._

 

 

I wonder if you ever noticed.

I wonder if it was just me, or if the thought ever crossed your mind, too.

I can’t know – Probably I never will.

You see, Damen, maybe I won’t ever know if the smiles you gave me were different from the rest. Maybe I won’t know if the words you gave me were only mine or shared with anyone else.

But I do want you to know.

Damen, I was falling for you.

 

**I**

They met on a train.

It was as simple as that. From all the places they could have met at, all the different, rather endless scenarios that could have happened to lead them to that moment in which their eyes met, the red string of fate had tied them to that cold morning on the train towards the centre of town.

It was nothing special, really. But like most good things in his life, —which were few, he could count them with his fingers and still have some left— it was definitely unexpected. He was used to the bad things, the kind of struggles normal people never even thought about. He didn’t even know if this— _he_ was a good thing or in fact the worst thing that could have happened after losing his brother.

But it was certain that ever since Laurent locked eyes with that stranger sitting in front of him across the carriage, everything started to change.

He started to change.

He didn’t notice back then, the aspects were too subtle and minimal; the hint of a flutter in his stomach, the intention of heat in his pale cheeks, the oddness of his heart skipping one, two, beats at a time, every time dark brown eyes landed in his.

It was a Monday, early January. The day outside was clear, not a single cloud in the blue sky that reflected his own eyes. The air – chilly, like you’d expect it to be after Christmas.

The nightingales stood on branches and sang their songs. It was rare to see them during the day, even more to spot them in the city between the chaos of the working mid-class rushing to their jobs and the students finding their ways to the overpriced institutions that claimed to offer them—all of them, because every single one said the same thing—the best education possible. In spite of the crowds and the noises, those small birds stood in the middle of them all and sang.

Laurent wondered if they were oblivious to everything, or on the contrary, they sang because they just knew.  They knew that humans listened to them, they knew he was listening.

And he closed his eyes and breathed a little better.

They met on a train.

Because, sometimes the best stories start off with a very small thing, like a bird. All through history, the nightingale has been a symbol for poets, love and tragedies. Their melodies are supposed to inspire and comfort those who sit in darkness and drown in solitude; those who’ve been disappointed and those who have been hurt, in one way or another.

And Laurent, he…

He supposed he was a poet.

At six in the morning most of the train stations were full, and Nesson-Eloy being near central was especially crowded with businessmen and college students. That was one of the reasons why he never took the express train to school, and instead, opted for the slower, normal one, which was considerably less crowded. The other reason was that even if he took the normal train and not the express, he’d still have some solid fifteen minutes before his classes, so might as well enjoy the ride.

The thirty minutes he spent every day sitting there and looking out the window were probably the best ones of his whole routine. He was one of the first ones to enter the train, and he chose a seat next to the window. He barely noticed when it left the station, for he was too immersed into his novel to notice the world kept going around him.

And that’s when it happened.

Laurent saw the silhouette of someone passing by, and then the sunlight that entered by the window was blocked by a shadow. Carefully, he looked up from his book to the man next to him. He was, after all, impossible not to notice, especially so early in the morning. Large, muscular, clumsily grabbing his coffee and making faces whenever he thought it would spill over. Trying to handle his satchel, his cellphone and a paper bag at the same time, making Laurent chuckle behind his hand involuntarily. He was obviously calling for attention.

When the stranger finally managed to plonk into the seat, Laurent almost turned his attention back to his book. Except that the man in question caught him looking. For a whole minute, he held his gaze.

Perhaps if it had been any other person, he would have looked away. Probably, if it had been anyone else, he would have ignored him completely. But there was something in the way his brown eyes shone with the morning light and the intensity of his regard that made Laurent’s heartbeat change oddly. The stranger looked at him like if he knew him already, like this was not the first time they saw each other but a third or a fourth or a hundredth.

In the air between them, a question stood.

_Who are you?_

The spell broke when the train took a turn and the dark haired man spilled his coffee not only on himself but on Laurent as well. It was hot, and the drops burned on his skin. Any sentiment he had possible felt during those few seconds their eyes locked was suddenly gone, replaced by annoyance and a bit of hatred.

There were drops on his book, too.

“I’m so sorry,” the man said. He had an accent Laurent couldn’t make out. “Really, I—“

Laurent glared at him, “Save it.”

He grabbed his bag and was looking for a napkin –or something he could use as one—when the stranger poked him softly, like a kid would. Looking up, he saw him smile with his arm stretched out towards him, in his hand a white handkerchief offered to him.

At first, Laurent just stared, not comprehending. But the brown eyes were not only apologetic but also insisting, so he took it carefully. It was soft, probably made of cotton. Spotless, too.

He cleaned his own clothes and tapped the pages of his book softly, trying to absorb as much as the liquid as possible without ruining the pages.  The stains were still there, but at least now they wouldn't rip out. "Thank you," he whispered.

The stranger smiled, simply. His clothes were coffee stained and his hands were probably sticky, but he didn't seem to care at all. “It’s no problem,” He looked into the paper bag and took out a napkin, shaking off the crumbs of what apparently was a croissant, and cleaned his hands. “I hope your book is alright?”

"If it wasn't, you wouldn't be alive right now."

The stranger laughed, even though it had not been his intention. It was...a very nice laugh. A human version of the nightingale song.  "I suppose I’m lucky, then."

“No,” Laurent said, “You're very incompetent.”

Before the stranger could reply, however, a voice spoke through the speakers announcing they were close to their destination. Laurent got up, shoving his book in his bag and walked to the automatic doors. Once they opened, he walked out the train and didn't look back.

He was halfway through his ten minutes walk to college when he realized he was still clutching the stranger’s handkerchief tight in his fist. The bright white fabric had now light brown spots, and it seemed more like watercolor than coffee stains.

On one of the corners, two embroidered letters stood out.

_D.A._

 

***

He lost count of how many times he washed it.

Coffee stains were harder to take off than it seemed. Even though they were light, they were still a pain in the ass to wash off. In the end, he gave in and used the hydrogen peroxide.

Laurent took the handkerchief with him the day after. But for the days that followed, the stranger didn’t show up at the train.

If it wasn’t because he had the piece of cotton to remind himself it had been real, he would have probably thought it hadn’t really happened. It had been all too strange to begin with; a glance and the hint of a smile, the air around them seemed to change and the few seconds it lasted seemed rather eternal.

Laurent closed his eyes. One moment he felt dizzy, the other it was gone. He touched his lip, counted to three. His mind got lost. The feeling of déjà vu was too strong to ignore.

Blinking, he turned his eyes to his journal and wrote: _Do I know you?_

 

***

Two and a half weeks passed until he saw him again.

When the stranger hopped into the train, Laurent casted his eyes downwards to his poetry book. For a minute he was curious to see what he would do.

Would he ignore him?

Would he pretend he never gave Laurent his handkerchief – the instant forgotten in the back of his mind for it was most likely irrelevant?

To any normal person, it would be certainly irrelevant. In fact, he did not know why he cared so much.

He just wanted to give it back.

The stranger scanned the wagon and smiled at the sight of him. He sat in front of Laurent, and with a joyful voice he asked, “New book?”

Laurent pushed his glasses up, still not looking at him, and flipped the page, “Didn’t know you could read.”

The laugh that followed was loud enough to bring the attention of the rest of the passengers directly at them. Laurent sighed and looked up. The man was in a different suit than the last time; and he shone with the intensity of a burning star in the galaxy.

Why was he so happy at six thirty in the morning?

“Someone’s still pissed about the coffee, huh?” And then, “It was just an accident.”

Laurent didn’t answer, just gave him a long look before returning to his reading. In reality, the incident with the coffee had been a quick moment of annoyance that vanished as fast as the questions about the stranger to pop in his head. He wasn’t upset – how could he? Two weeks had passed.

And it had been just an accident.

He was just…bad at this. Bad at small talk, at socialization. At stepping out of his bubble and acknowledge the world around him. He had his own reasons not to trust the world – strangers, and feelings like this one of uncertainty and curiosity.

He knew better.

“If you must know,” Laurent said, quietly, “It’s a poetry book.”

He knew better.

“Oh? What kind of poetry?”

Laurent shrugged.

_The kind that starts by breaking your heart in half, fixes it midway and has either saved you or murdered you by the time you reach the last word._

_The kind that makes me want to trust the world._

_The one that makes you forget the suffering in your heart._

_The one that makes you forget how lonely you are._

_How lonely we all are._

“I have to read it for a class,” He lied. He had read that same poetry book at least twenty times in the past two months. It was easier to escape into the abyss of someone else than look inside his own.

“English Major?” The man asked. Laurent got distracted by a stray dark curl swinging back and forth with the almost imperceptible breeze of the air conditioned.

“Philo.”

Genuine interest sparkled in the stranger’s eyes. Or so it seemed. It was igniting fire to something that was underwater. “Can I see?”

Laurent handed the book over and the strange took it carefully. With a thumb in between the pages, he held it at a proper distance and read, outloud, the words Laurent had highlighted.

_“Luna,_

_Don't abandon me anymore,_

_I tend to recover_

_In the cradle of your craters._

_Silence._

_The earth cracks open,_

_And the seas rise up,_

_At the beat of the volcano.”_

His voice was deep, rich, enunciating each word—each syllable perfectly, clearly. His diction was that of a narrator. It was soft yet strong and Laurent was able to listen but no one else could. As the stranger read, a barrier expanded around them, circling them into another time, the moment where art stops our world and reshapes us as persons.

Time stopped a few seconds and they lived within them until the poem was over.

Laurent swallowed. He hadn’t realized he had closed his eyes until the stranger spoke again.

“This is beautiful.” He turned the page and read another. And then another.

 _I could lend it to you, if you want._ He didn’t say that.

 _They are the only thing that makes sense to me, sometimes._ He didn’t say that.

 _Who are you?_ He didn’t say that.

 _Why do you talk to me?_ He didn’t say that.

 _Why do you appear and disappear – like a magic trick?_ He didn’t say that.

“It is,” Laurent agreed.

_What’s your name?_

After flipping through a few more pages, the stranger handed back the book and Laurent left it on his lap. They were close to the station, probably.

The stranger took something out of yet another mysterious paper bag and offered it to him, “Here.”

It was an alfajor, big enough to be the size of his own hand and with shredded coconut on the sides, sticking to the caramel from the inside. Too much of a nice treat.

Laurent narrowed his eyes and pushed his glasses up again as a reflex. “Did your mother never teach you to never take candy from strange men?”

He laughed, the sound resounding like music. Then, slowly, he stopped. It blended into a tender smile, “I never knew my mom, but I’m sure she probably would have.”

“I didn’t mean to—“

“It’s fine,” the guy said. And then, “It’s not poisoned. I bought them this morning at a café in Ios.” He bit into it, thus to prove his point. “However, it is extremely sweet.”

Laurent took one and brought it to his mouth. It was certainly sweet. Soft, the cookie dissolving slowly in his mouth, which meant it was definitely fresh.

Alfajores were similar to French macaroons, and although he liked both, he thought he preferred these ones. It was his first meal of the day besides a cup of coffee and he was somewhat grateful, if not still skeptical about the precedence.

“You live in Ios, then.” Laurent said. He had never looked up to see in which station the stranger took the train at. Auguste always liked to visit that district. The beach was there, and he was a big fan of it. Laurent not so much. “You’re aware you shouldn’t give a stranger this kind of information, right?”

“It’s not like I’m giving you my address and the keys to my house.”

“You live in a house?”

“No,” The man said, “A flat.” And then, realizing he had given another piece of information away, “Goddammit.”

That made Laurent laugh. The stranger joined in, next.

And it felt so good and so natural, his stomach contracting in spasms, his mind clear from the fog that often clouded him, the ghosts that liked to haunt him buried deep somewhere they couldn’t bother him anymore. He forgot that the dark skinned guy next to him was a stranger.

Laurent felt like he should have rebuilt his armor around him once again, but found that he couldn’t – he didn’t want to.

“I hadn’t laughed like that in a long time,” he whispered.

“Me neither.”

Staring at him, “But you laugh all the time.”

“But not like that,” the stranger said, and smiled. “It was different.”

“How so?”

“Laughing with someone feels better than laughing alone, don’t you think?”

A flashback crossed his mind, fast. Or it was better to say that millions of them did so at the same time, meddling into one.  At first it was just a face – blue eyes and blonde hair like his own. And then the echo of his brother’s laugh resounded in his ears like laments from another life.

He always laughed harder with Auguste by his side.

“Yes, it does.”

The train came to a stop, but neither of them got up or even turned to the door. While all the other passengers hopped off, they remained there, staring at each other.

Laurent thought of how the poem followed, he felt the words heavy in the beatings of his heart.

 

_“And then when you approach me,_

_You speed up my engine._

_I have a fever, then I burn up and I consume myself.”_

Finally, he looked away.

“ _Au revoir, Verlaine_ ,” the stranger said, before getting up, “I’ll see you around.”

Laurent left the train and by the time he stepped out of the station, he was grinning, softly to himself.

He had called him a poet.

 

 

 

 

 

> _The honeysuckle will return,_
> 
> _to climb the walls in your garden,_
> 
> _and open once again at evening_
> 
> _their even more beautiful flowers,_
> 
>  
> 
> _but those blooms that were full of dew_
> 
> _where we saw the trembling drops_
> 
> _fall like tears of the day_
> 
> _those... will not return._

 

**II**

From Monday to Friday, they met on the train.

Sometimes they talked. Some other times they found comfort in the silence they shared. The mystery between them lingered; neither had revealed their name. There was a certain fear to doing so; as if reassuming their original roles would ruin the ones they’ve invented during the train rides.

As if they wanted to split the real world from the thirty minutes they spent together looking out the window and reading poems.

It was, partly, the weight of their past that threatened to strangle them. And neither of them, not Laurent and not the stranger, wished to jinx _it_.

It, whatever it could mean. It; them, their _it_.

The days, the weeks passed. The winter ice slowly dissolving, letting spring take over with its bumblebees and daisies.

“Bonjour, Verlaine.”

“Bonjour,” he said, and looked up.

The stranger smiled, like he always did. He was hiding something behind his back. “You’re not wearing your glasses today.”

He wasn’t, no. Somehow, today, he had miraculously felt like wearing contacts. And he knew why and he hated that he knew and the fact that he had given in to his impulse out of pure sentiment. A sentiment that he felt warm in his stomach every morning at six thirty.

Then he realized, the stranger had never seen him without glasses. He felt his own cheeks turn red.

“You look good.”

“I suppose, thanks.” Laurent said.

Leaning closer, until they were mere centimeters apart, the stranger said, “Your eyes are the brightest blue.” And then, “They match.”

“What?”

The stranger pulled back a bit and then in a swift motion, he presented him a flower. It was a small, blue flower Laurent couldn’t identify. He accepted it, taking it with his right hand and sniffing it slightly.

It smelled of life and pollen.

He blushed significantly more, “Why?”

“I wonder why,” the stranger said, smiling. He took the flower from Laurent’s hand softly, his fingers brushing against Laurent skin, action that made his heart skipped several beats, and then tucked it in his golden hair. “You’re the poet, Verlaine, what do you say?”

“I say you’re stupid.”

Smiling, with teeth and dimples, “Surely you can do better than that.”

“I say you’re utterly, completely, nerves-wrecking and astonishingly stupid.”

“Maybe I am,” he said and sat next to him.

Laurent turned his eyes to the window, and for a few seconds he stared at his own reflection. The sight of the flower next to his ear made him smile.

“When I saw it, I thought of you,” the stranger whispered.

Laurent said, “Tu es comme un personnage dans l'un des tragi de Shakespeare.”

_You’re like a character from one of Shakespeare’s tragicomedies._

“Parce que je t’ai donné une fleur?”

_Because I’ve given you a flower?_

“No,” Laurent said, and stared at the stranger’s reflection in the glass, “C'est à cause de ce que tu me fais sentir en me donnant une fleur.”

_It is because of what you make me feel by giving me a flower._

 

***

“What kind of music,” the stranger asked, as he slid his phone back into his pocket. “Do you listen to?”

Laurent’s eyes lingered for a moment, staring at the last word he had written in his journal, before turning his attention to his train companion.

“It depends.”

He obviously found that simple, half-minded answer as something worth of his immediate interest. Laurent had grown to understand that this person was in fact the human version of a giant puppy. A golden retriever or a Siberian husky with a heart as big as the sun and whose heart beat with the same intensity of a burning star.

“On what?”

Laurent said, “My mood, the weather, my level of concentration, mercury being retrograde…”

“What do you listen to when you write?”

He debated for a minute on the idea before giving in. He closed his notebook, pressed pause on his iPod and moved to sit next to the stranger in front of him. Saying nothing, Laurent handed him an earbud and waited till he shoved it in to press play.

The notes felt different when being listened only on the left side and were partially swallowed by the strong beating of his own heart at the proximity they were sharing. He was so close he thought he could count down the stranger’s long and dark eyelashes as he closed his eyes and listened to the piece.

“Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto,” he whispered, “Of course. This sounds like you.”

“Does it, now?” Laurent asked.

Still with his eyes closed, “Yes.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know.” And then, smirking, “It just does.”

“Maybe,” Laurent said, submerging himself in the quick shifts of the _allegro moderato_ , “I was a musician in another life.”

“And maybe I liked listening to you.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Do you—“

Laurent shushed him, “This is my favorite part.”

They both remained silent as they listened to the raising of the violin, it demanded all of their attention and gave them Goosebumps.

“It’s a monster,” the man whispered.

“It’s music,” Laurent said, and he knew he sounded dumb and a little bit in love. But he was.

The déjà vu feeling struck him again. For a minute, he wondered if it had already happened or if it was a product of his imagination.

Or if maybe he had played Tchaikovsky in one of his past lives.

But he let it slide, and instead focused on the guy sitting next to him, who seemed so distracted he didn’t notice the way Laurent watched him. Like if he could tell everything with his eyes, everything and more than his own mind could process.

That he liked him.

If he wasn’t Laurent, he’d do something.

But because he was himself, and not anyone else, he just couldn’t. In his head he made a thousand and one scenarios where a variation of Laurent de Vere just asked him his name. Just that. Bold, fast, direct and – not himself.

Not at all.

He could be bold, yes. And direct, all right.

But,

It didn’t work this way, no. It only worked when his tongue itched with poison and he let out the words knowing they were daggers directed at those who threatened with getting too close.

This was different. Entirely. Because it was him who wanted to get closer, but he didn’t know how the fuck he should start. Or if he even wanted to. After those thousand and one scenarios came the thousand and one consequences of said encounter. Needless to say, he was not going to let that happen.

His mind shifted back to the music, then, as the stranger bobbed his head rhythmically to the high notes of the violin and orchestra. Laurent flushed as he thought of two things: he wondered, first, how it would be, to call this person by his name. He wondered what kind of name it was, how it would song on his tongue, and how his own would sound coming from such a deep, rich voice that he seemed to enjoy perhaps a bit too much of what he would have allowed himself.

He wondered if it would sound like music.

And then, secondly, he thought, how Tchaikovsky must of felt when his lover rejected the composition –the concert—that had been dedicated to him.

He wondered if it was worse having your art rejected than perhaps your heart. Because art is purer, art is your soul. If someone rejects your soul, and the picture of them they taint with their own dissatisfaction, what happens to your art? What happens to you?

If you like someone, but at the same time you don’t know them at all, what happens, then?

If Laurent were to take a risk and ask him for his name,

If he were to stand up on the train and tell him the truth – that his heart beat oddly and his tongue tangled out of nothing and the words of his journal were all questions he dared not to ask,

If he took a chance,

If he did it now,

He didn’t have time to keep on thinking, then, for the train stopped, and the stranger returned his earbud.

“Ce fut un plaisir _._ ”

_It was a pleasure._

Laurent took it back, and once more, they left the train.

 

***

This time, they didn’t talk.

At first, Laurent thought something was up. It was odd – the quietness. Or well, not the quietness, but the empty feeling of beyond silence.

For a few minutes he was mortified that finally this person had come to see his true colors and despised him like people in his past had, but then as he looked up from his journal, he found instead that the truth was rather simple.

He was asleep.

The stranger of dark curls and full lips was asleep, with his arms crossed on his chest and his head lay back.

And something inside of him screamed or choked or died and bloomed. It was such a blissful view; with the sun making his locks shine in bronze and the leaves of the trees making dancing shadows on his dark skin.

Asleep, he looked like the child he had been once. Laurent could see it in the way he rested; oblivious to anything else, unafraid of the monsters under his bed. Not because they couldn’t reach him, but because he knew he could beat him if that was the case.

Laurent was absorbed in the image of it and down on his journal, he wrote. In his neat calligraphy with loopy cursive letters, he let himself be poet once more, the poet he had been before Auguste had died, leaving him alone in the dark listening to the nightingales and their laments.

_They say angels,_

_Come from the heavens_

_But they never told me_

_About angels that sat beside you on_

_Agonizing train rides,_

_Their face glowing with_

_Light my brother use to warn me about— it_

_Was dangerous but I_

_Have always had Icarus' curiosity and a moth's fascination for things_

_That had flames as hearts._

_He could consume me and_

_I wouldn't scream._

It was the first poem he had written in years. The first one that didn’t make him cringe, at least. He wrote his initials underneath and the date, March the 1st.

The title – _Knight of Wands_.

The train arrived to the station and he closed his journal before putting it back in his back. The stranger was still sleeping, and Laurent hesitated for a minute before reaching over and shaking his shoulder softly.

He opened his mouth to call him, but remembered he still didn’t know. He tried a few times, and then gave up, grabbing a strand of hair and tugging on it with force.

Finally, the stranger opened his eyes.

“Ow,” he said, “That hurt, you know?”

“Not as much as it would have finding yourself in the other side of town,” Laurent said, and then, softer, “We’re here.”

The stranger looked around, at the people leaving the train and rushing to work, and he stood up. “Thank you.”

“You must have been really tired.”

“I was,” and then, as they both made their way out of the wagon, “Did you write anything today, _Verlaine_?”

Laurent smiled to himself, small and quick and gone before the man could see. He couldn’t let him know, no. He had told the stranger he didn’t write anymore, but now he couldn’t tell him.

Not right now, at least. Perhaps later.

“No,” he said, and then, teasing, “And did you dream of me today, rêveur ?”

Smiling, “Oui,” he said, “Dans mon rêve, tu étais violoniste. »

_In my dream, you were a violinist._

In that moment, Laurent knew, he was screwed. Completely screwed. And he had to learn his name.

He had to take that chance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _Ardent words of love will return_
> 
> _to sound and resound in your ears;_
> 
> _and your heart from the depths of sleep_
> 
> _perhaps will wake again;_
> 
>  
> 
> _but silent, absorbed, on bended knee,_
> 
> _as men worship God at His altar,_
> 
> _as I have loved you ... don’t fool yourself,_
> 
> _they'll not love you like that._
> 
>  
> 
>  

**III**

Sometimes, a heart can break.

Whether it’s out of pain or out of rage or incomprehension, the damage can be irreparably. Unforgettable.

Sometimes, millions of hearts can break, at the same time.

And it is often not because of what’s happened, but of what wouldn’t occur.

It was a Thursday; March 11th and Laurent was on a train.

Every morning, he took the same line to go school in the centre of town. It was a thirty minute ride, and probably the highlight of his whole routine.

Because every day, from Monday to Friday, like the nightingales in Becquer’s poem, from station to station, sitting in front, was him.

The stranger; _Rêveur_.

With his smiles and his soft sighs and yawns against the window. And the way he looked at Laurent like he was the fucking satellite of a planet and the first flower of spring in a field of empty grass.

Two months had passed, and he felt like if he didn’t ask now, his one chance would pass and the thing that had been slowly building between them without them even realizing would collapse and vanish like dust.

Laurent watched him enter the train and he clutched the handkerchief tightly in his hand. It had been hidden in the bottom of his bag and eventually he forgot it was even there until he remembered the initials.

_D.A._

It was like an antique riddle, like the one in _Turandot_ : “You do not know my name. Tell me my name before sunrise, and at dawn, I will die.”

Not knowing each other’s names had been a riddle, a challenge or a mask. They had played by the rules, tiptoeing around the fact that in the end they were strangers and nothing else.

But precisely, it had been because of that, that this story was told like this. Because they had shared secrets only strangers could share. Speak words only strangers could. Knowing that walking away was possible and even adequate. That whatever the other person could thing didn’t happen to be important.

But something had happened, in the midst of it all, something in them started to grow. The trust they planted, that they threw in the snowy January and it continued to live all through February and was blooming in March, the trust the rest of the world had try to break down, and the feelings attached to the confidence they had – like friends, like a word that could become a sentence, or a few pages into a novel.

Because, sometimes the best stories start off with a very small thing, like a handkerchief.

The stranger sat across him, like he always did, and smiled at the sight of him. Laurent shuddered in a breath and close his eyes.

_Do it now._

_Do it now, or the dark swallows will never be back._

_The words you so seek to recover won’t ever be back._

_The love you seek won’t ever be back._

_But this person,_

_This stranger,_

And suddenly, it happened, his lips grew awake.

“What’s your name?” he asked, and the question left him breathless.

The stranger’s eyes lit up like they had never before, and the world, “Damen,” it seemed to stop when he said; “My name is Damen.”

_Damen._

He smiled, he couldn’t help it. The name suited him, it was him in his entire splendor and he was no longer a stranger or a dreamer. He was Damen.

“And you are?” he asked, then, grinning.

“Damen,” Laurent said, loving the way it sounded when leaving his lips, “I’m Laurent.”

“Laurent,” Damen said, savoring the syllables, holding out his hand to shake his, “It’s been a real pleasure to know you.”

Laurent took his hand in his and both of them felt it then. The revelation of their identities leaving them free. Like the epilogue after a war scene.

They had been bound to each other and now that they were together, it was up to them what the next paragraph said.

“Every morning I refuse to take the express and take this one instead,” Damen said, still holding his hand, “The first time I saw you, I was on my way to a job interview,” he explained. And his side of the story shook the insides of Laurent’s mistreated heart, “I got the job, and this route takes me a little further than my new office, but I had to come back and apologize.”

Every day, Damen took the train to see him. And it was rather useless for it was still far from his office, and yet he didn’t care.

Laurent thought he was going to mark it down on his journal, now. March 11th. They were closer to the station now, entering the tunnel, and he squeezed Damen’s hand in his.

“I wanted to—“

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, for in that moment the lights went out.

It happened like closing his eyes. Blinking, to find darkness reigning where it shouldn’t. There was a loud sound that made his ears ring, and the warmth of Damen’s hand got lost somewhere in between the sudden numbness of his whole body and the lack of light in the train.

He tried, uselessly, to move. He didn’t know why he couldn’t, and his mind didn’t manage to focus on the task, either. For what seemed years, he felt lost. Lost in the darkness, absent from the world, and then, like fast flashes, he came back to himself on full force. His mind divagated between and out of consciousness until he heard Damen’s voice.

And then he came back.

And then he understood; he was dying.

Damen called him again, and he felt his hands touching his legs, his stomach, making their way up his abdomen, trying to find him in the dark.

With an effort, Laurent moved his arms and took Damen’s hands in his, pulling him forwards until he found his face.

They were close, so close, breathing the same air, if there was any left between the clouds of dust that filled his lungs each time he inhaled.

“Damen,” he said, and he was glad he found his voice.

“Laurent,” Damen said, he sounded more alert, panicked, confused, “I don’t know what’s going on—it was—and then I couldn’t find you—“

“Damen,” Laurent couldn’t see him, but he could feel him, there. Their limbs tangled, their hands desperately clinging to each other. His eyes filled with tears and his voice broke, “I wanted to tell you something.”

“What?” Damen asked, his voice breaking slightly, too.

“Thank you,” Laurent said, laughing in a sob, and opening Damen’s hand to press the handkerchief against his palm, “For the handkerchief.”

Damen choked, and Laurent knew he was crying. They were both crying surrounded by darkness. But Damen was floating in it when Laurent was sinking.

Today, they said goodbye.

So he grew brave, one last time. He found courage, gumption, and taking Damen’s face sotly, he kissed him.

It was all at once; the apology and the thanks, the first and the last, the hello and goodbye.

Sometimes, a heart can break. One, two, hundreds, thousands.

Sometimes, millions of hearts can break, at the same time.

And it is often not because of what’s happened, but of what wouldn’t occur. The date that was never to be, the developing of something that had been interrupted without a reason or explanation.

Damen and Laurent met on a train. In every story, it was like that: They met because they had to, because their souls couldn’t be without the other not in this life or a past or a future or any. Because there was something that pulled them together even when the universe and the authors was always trying to split them apart. It didn’t matter if they were musicians or poets or just _strangers_.

Maybe this time, it had been the wrong timing. Maybe it had been too fast or too slow or maybe they had taken the wrong train, the wrong day.

Damen kissed him back, and Laurent felt his light flicker. He was leaving.

He wanted to tell him many things. He wanted to tell Damen that he had made him feel less lonely. He wanted to tell Damen about Auguste. He wanted to tell Damen about his career and the poems he read and how he liked to drink his tea.

Laurent wanted to tell Damen about the nightingales and Tchaikovsky and that his laugh sounded like sunshine opening up the skies after a storm and he wanted to tell him he had been the best thing of his life for the past two months.

He wanted to let him read his poems. Tell him all the ideas he wouldn’t voice to anyone else.

And he wanted to tell him, also,

“I like you,” he whispered.

 _Little brother_ , he heard _, we have to go._

But he couldn’t say all those things like he couldn’t say many others in the past. To Damen, instead, Laurent gave the last breath of his heart.

 

 

 

 

 

**IV**

Damen sat on a train.

After the bombings on March 11th, it took him a year of rehab and therapy to be able to go back to his daily routine. He found that bones were easier to fix than hearts, and that the mind could be as malign as a stab.

After that Thursday, he woke up in a hospital days later. His head was injured, his back scarred, one of his legs broken.

They didn’t need to tell him Laurent was dead because he remembered. He remembered how, after the kiss, Laurent’s head had dropped back and Damen had barely caught him. He felt his pulse slow down until it was gone, and his body grew cold before the rescue patrols made it to where they were, buried in rubble.

It didn’t matter how many times Damen called him and pled him to wake up – he was gone. After that, he held onto consciousness for a while, but the lack of oxygen made him dizzy and he passed out.

His body healed in a couple of months, his mind slowly regained control and he was learning to live with a broken heart. He remembered crying in the hospital room over his _Verlaine_ , the guy he had met on the train, and Nikandros crying with him out of relief that it hadn’t been him.

It hadn’t been Damen, but it had been one hundred ninety two people. One hundred ninety two people whose future had been taken away by hatred. It took him a while to understand what had happened and why, and even so, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready to talk about it.

Maybe he never would.

However, a year after, he got on a train.

It was something his therapist had recommended – that was supposed to help ease his conscience. For quite some time –and still during a few nights where insomnia was too bad—he felt guilty. Guilty of not being able to save Laurent.

Guilty because he was alive and the boy with golden hair who wrote poems and talked about music had died in his arms and he had not been able to prevent him or help him. He just held him while he gave his last breath and his tears ceased.

He knew it wasn’t his fault, and yet it hurt. It hurt so badly, because he _liked_ him.  Laurent had come into his life when he needed him most and neither of them had known. Because after losing his job and a brother and a girlfriend and a father he needed to escape. The people around him were too toxic and he needed a breath of fresh air.

That’s when they met. And Laurent sat on the train like he commanded the whole thing, pretentiously balancing one leg over the other, moving his foot to the rhythm of some even more pretentious Tchaikovsky piece and reading about poetry and philosophy and pretending the world around him was nothing but scum.

And then he would look up at Damen, and behind those glasses the bluest of eyes stared at him in curiosity. And he was and looked very young but his mind was so wise and his speaking so rich Damen was immediately attracted to him.

Many times Damen tried to ask for his name only to backup immediately because he wasn’t sure how that would proceed. It was already so – unique what they had and he enjoyed it so much that it was almost dangerous to try and break the spell.

Then, he eventually forgot about it. Inside his mind, Laurent was _Verlaine_ and he knew his favorite authors and favorite musicians and that he liked espresso and had a weakness for sweats. He knew he had a brother and he knew he studied philosophy and that he was French. Suddenly, his real name didn’t matter, he knew everything else.

He thought he knew what was most important.

But he grew impatient, and those thirty minutes on the train were no longer enough. He wanted to know him more. He wanted to really know him. Take him to a library and see his reaction to all the books he would find and like, or to a pastry shop, or see an opera.

Or anything he liked. Anywhere he wanted to go.

That day, March 11th, Damen decided to ask him out.

But Laurent spoke before he could, and then he asked his name and Damen knew. He knew both of them felt the same way.

Damen sat next to the window, on the same spot Laurent liked to sit, and he opened his book. It was such an old edition he doubted he’d find a similar one in any store. Apparently, Laurent had gotten it from his grandmother and it was one of his most beloved treasures. He flipped through the pages and read a couple of verses; the ones highlighted in blue seemed to be his favorite ones, like the _Luna_ poem they had read together once.

For a year, he had kept his book and the handkerchief in a drawer inside his room. And it was only now that he could open it and read its contents without having painful flashbacks that made him physically ill.

Inside the train, he tried to remain calm. He breathed and tried not to think as he read. Some of the words didn’t make sense, and then there were small notes here and there under lines or in the corners. Whether Laurent liked to analyze them for pleasure or for his classes, he didn’t know.

Becquer’s nightingales one seemed to be the one he liked most. The title was highlighted but not the rest, except the final line. He wanted to ask Laurent what it meant, he wanted to ask him what had happened in the past.

For a minute there, as he blinked, he thought he had seen him there. Sitting in front of him, with his eyes fixed on the window and a flower on his golden hair. The sun reflecting on his image made him shine, and Damen knew that if he looked away, it was over.

Whether it was his mind or if it was real, he knew if he looked away, he’d be gone.

Laurent was there, and still he wasn’t. Finally, Damen looked away. The image was gone, lost somewhere in his conscience.

_“As I have loved you ... don’t fool yourself,_

_they'll not love you like that.”_

His eyes filled with tears, and he thought he would cry, but he didn’t. He managed to hold them back, this time.

_I will find you again, Verlaine. Next time._

**Author's Note:**

> Hello guys! I don't tend to write notes in the end but I felt like for this one I should. Months ago, around January, I started to write this one-shot but I only got around to finishing it recently. It turned out very different from my main idea and in all honesty this is probably like the 4th draft or something like that. I rewrote and deleted so many scenes because I wanted it to be perfect. Still, it isn't. But I hope you enjoy it all the same. 
> 
> Initially I was supposed to post this on March 11th, [the day of the attacks in Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Madrid_train_bombings). You see, when I was a child I learnt about terrorism with this day. It was one of the first shocks of my life, and maybe at the time it felt closer because it had been in Spain and my mother tongue is Spanish. As I grew up, every year in March, I learnt more about what had happened, and I came across a song written by a band (La Oreja de Van Gogh) that changed me forever. I loosely based this one-shot in that song called Thursday; the lyrics are about a girl who has a crush on a boy she sees every day on the train but she's too shy and has little confidence and self esteem so she never talks to him until the day of the attack. The song was --also-- based on the remnants of the journal of a real girl. The entry of that day was incomplete. 
> 
> I decided to write this because many people don't even know this happened. I don't know if it's because of the language barrier or what, but it makes me upset because all the victims deserve to be remembered. All of them had stories and people waiting for them to step out of that train. 
> 
> We live in a world full of hate and racism, and people have always told me I can't change the way things are. But I have to try. I have words, I'm a writer, there's something --even the smallest thing-- I can do. 
> 
> Thanks for reading<3 you know where to find me. ([princesgambit](https://twitter.com/princesgambit) // [dearanemone](http://princesgambit.co.vu/))
> 
> P.S. For all of you who know me from Étude, I hope you caught the small references.  
> P.S.2 The first poem is by Gustavo Adolfo Becquér. The [Luna](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W4L2O-JQ-w) poem are actually lyrics by the amazing band Zoé (I honestly couldn't have written this without listening to that song on repeat for days)  
> P.S.3 Thanks to Ellen and Kelly for betaing and proofreading and all the support throughout this whole process. I wouldn't be able to do this without you. Also thanks to Rain, my favorite poet and friend, who wrote Laurent's poem for Damen.


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